Michael Douglas shares rare update about reclusive friend Jack Nicholson: ‘I still see him’

Wesley StenzelSat, October 31, 2026 at 1:00 AM UTC

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Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas in 2009Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/GettyKey points -

Michael Douglas shared a rare update on his longtime friend Jack Nicholson.

“I still see him,” Douglas said.

Nicholson last appeared on the big screen in 2010’s How Do You Know.

Michael Douglas is a longtime friend of Jack Nicholson and says that the Shining star is doing okay.

The Romancing the Stone star reflected on his friendship with Nicholson during a promotional event for his memoir in Swansea, Wales.

“I would have liked to have acted with Jack,” Douglas said, per The Independent. “He’s not working any more. He’s well. He has disappeared. I know that.”

Jack Nicholson in East Hampton, N.Y., on Aug. 16, 2014Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Nicholson has not appeared in a movie since 2010’s How Do You Know, and is rarely seen in public. Douglas said that the Something’s Gotta Give star is enjoying time at home.

“I still see him, but he is fine,” Douglas said. “He is up there by his house and walking around in his slippers. It happens. He deserves it. I understand. He is a few years older than me, but I understand.”

Douglas collaborated with Nicholson on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the 1975 classic that won the Chinatown star his first Oscar. Douglas served as a producer on the film after obtaining the rights to Ken Kesey’s source novel from his father, Kirk. Kirk starred in a play adaptation of the book and originally intended to act in the film adaptation as well, but Michael told him they needed a younger actor to play the lead role.

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“When he’d done the show on Broadway, his career was in a different place — and different age-wise. So yes, that was my job: having to tell my dad,” Douglas told Entertainment Weekly last year. “He didn’t say much. He understood it. And then, after it all happened, because I gave him half of my producing deal, he would say he made more money off of that than any movie he had ever made before as an actor. So that helped!”

Michael Douglas in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Dec. 6, 2024Credit: Arnold Jerocki/Getty

The Wall Street star said that his father recognized Nicholson’s “great performance” in the film. “When he saw the picture, he reached out to Jack with a note [and] told him what a good job he did,” he said. “So we had a running joke, more than anything. ‘Yeah, yeah, he wouldn’t even cast me in his picture.’ But I’m eternally grateful for his good taste, to find that piece of material, and I’m certainly really grateful, in terms of our relationship, that it was a good picture.”

Douglas also said that he considered casting himself in a supporting role in the film. “There’s a part of me that says, you know, I can play the Billy Bibbit part,” he recalled. “But I was sort of hesitant. I didn’t bring it up yet. I thought it was a little presumptuous for me in my first production role. Then Brad Dourif did his audition, and he killed it. And I said, ‘Well, that’s that.’”

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The film ultimately became an enormous hit, earning approximately $163 million at the box office. It was also one of the most dominant films in Academy Awards history and remains one of only three movies to sweep the “Big Five” awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

on Entertainment Weekly

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